


strange light in the sky

by birthdaycandles



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, Mostly Canon Partly AU, Mystery, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:21:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25655809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birthdaycandles/pseuds/birthdaycandles
Summary: “I think all the demodogs dropped dead when El closed the gate, and if there was a fresh batch we’d know. Or Will would know, with his little brain sensor.” Steve shrugs, like it’s simple. “And I think if it’s a werewolf, we should leave ‘em alone. What if it’s like, Mr. Clarke?”Nancy groans and brings a hand to her temple. Robin seems to be genuinely considering it, her mouth screwed up while she contemplates. Finally she shakes her head decisively. “I think it would conflict too much with his career. But weshouldmake a suspect list.”
Relationships: Robin Buckley & Jonathan Byers & Steve Harrington & Nancy Wheeler
Comments: 12
Kudos: 75





	strange light in the sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Whookami](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whookami/gifts).



A folded piece of notebook paper is balanced on his forensics and statistics textbooks when Jonathan opens his locker on Friday. 

He sighs. It’s the middle of the school day. He doesn’t usually bother coming to his locker at this point in the day. It makes his bag a little heavier, but ultimately that’s less of an inconvenience than coming all the way over to the science wing just to put one book away and then have to speedwalk to make it to journalism on time. Today, though, he doesn’t have much of a choice. There’s a football game tonight so his camera is currently hanging from its strap around one shoulder while his tripod is hanging likewise around the other. It’s too much to carry. 

One minute ago it seemed like too much to carry, that is. Now he crams the tripod in beside the books and unfolds the note to find slanted, all-caps writing in bright green ink and thinks maybe he could’ve handled having more cargo than usual if it meant not having to go through the rest of the day with this on his mind.

Nancy passes him on the way to sixth period. He has two minutes to make it approximately five feet, so he meets her eyes and glances meaningfully toward the water fountain. Nancy has to make it a lot more than five feet, which is probably why she looks exasperated. Still, she gracefully removes herself from the flow of traffic and weaves through people to meet him. 

“Did you get one?” He asks. 

“Of course.” She looks confused by the question. And she should be, because it was a stupid question. It’s just that sometimes Jonathan feels like he might be the only one, and that the involvement of everyone else is just a hallucination on his part. “Can you make it? It’ll be way before the game.”

“Yeah, we just can’t stay long.”

Nancy nods, satisfied, and then looks at him expectantly. She’s waiting to see why he wanted to talk. They’ve done this four times before, starting in August, and he should be with the program by now. Everyone else is. 

“What do you think it is?” 

“I think it’s probably the same thing it’s been every month.” Nancy replies, firm but not impatient. Two and a half years after she’d first approached him at Will’s fake funeral and yet Jonathan is still amazed by her ability to just...accept things. No matter how insane or scary. Nancy just looks the situation square in the eyes, nods, and works with it. Jonathan would give almost anything to be that unmoved by the shit they deal with, but instead he spent all of last night awake in bed, dreading the note and wondering what color the ink would be this time. “It’ll be fine. I mean, it’s not like we ever actually find anything, right?”

That’s what he’s worried about, actually, but for the sake of not making her late to English he just nods and agrees, “Right.”

He sits through two more periods and stops by his locker one more time to stash the books he doesn’t need for the weekend, half hoping there’ll be a new note saying “JUST KIDDING :)” waiting for him. There isn’t. As he does every Friday, he considers leaving his camera in the locker because he doesn’t technically need it again until 7 PM tonight, when he’ll have to come back for the tripod anyways, but as always he decides against it. It makes him feel safer to have it, somehow. 

One of these weeks, they’re gonna find something. It’ll be his job to document it. 

The kids are waiting at his car when he makes it out to the parking lot. Usually some are missing, but today he counts all five. It means someone will have to ride in the back without a seatbelt, which always makes him nervous, but he’s already nervous today anyways. Might as well go with it. 

“I’m gonna die back here.” Lucas complains from the backseat before they’re even out of the lot. “Mike’s boney elbows are going to impale me if you brake too hard.”

There’s a sharp slapping sound and a resulting scuffle, which Jonathan doesn’t bother to scold them about. If this were Steve’s car, it’d be a different story. Steve grew up an only sibling, so he’s not yet completely resigned to roughhousing and the back of his chair getting kicked. Plus, in his BMW the seats are a lot nicer. Jonathan glances at Will, calmly sitting in his birthright shotgun position and fiddling with the radio. 

“Is Steve working?” He asks, already pretty certain of the answer. There are only a handful of reasons Steve wouldn’t pick up Dustin, Lucas, and Max from school in the first place and considering the circumstances (as written in green ink) he probably switched his schedule around to be at Family Video if he wasn’t already supposed to. 

As expected, Will nods. “Yeah.”

Even more as expected, Dustin whines from the back, “He was supposed to work closing but he switched it for no reason. Almost like he _knows_ Friday nights are when we’re most in need of arcade money.”

“I thought Nancy was taking you guys to the game?” Jonathan asks. She complained about it last night on the phone after her mom gave her the order. Apparently El wants to go. None of them can say no to her. 

“The game is at 7. What are we supposed to do until then?”

Jonathan doesn’t think the kids will listen if he tells them to try just sitting in the house for a few hours. Instead, he reaches into his center console and blindly scoops up a few of the coins that have been deposited there during numerous drive-through trips and swings his arm over the seat to offer it up. “Here.”

Someone takes the change from him and for a moment he takes the silence as speechless gratitude. 

“This is 47 cents.” Max announces. 

He leaves the kids at home and lies about where he’s going. It doesn’t feel great to hide things from Will, especially things of this particular nature which tangentially relate to him personally, but they’d all agreed on it. No one tells the kids until they have solid proof of what’s happening. Even then, Steve had argued, they don’t need anything else to give them nightmares if there’s a choice in the matter. So Jonathan tells Will he’s heading back to school to study before the game starts and drives to Family Video. 

Robin is at the counter when he walks in, writing in what he thinks is the schedule. It’s a huge black binder with enough pages in it to probably give someone a concussion if used as a weapon. 

“Hey.” She murmurs with a solitary glance up at him, apparently absorbed in concentration. “Sorry, one sec. I have to focus.”

He watches her forge a signature that looks exactly like the several above it in a long chart of names, dates, and times. Jonathan squints. “Who’s Cynthia Malone?” 

“General manager. She’s in charge of the schedules but she’s always super hungover when she comes in on Monday so she won’t remember what she wrote.” Robin says casually, moving back to examine her work. Seemingly satisfied, she flips the binder closed and drops the pen that’s already stained her thumb with a faded green blotch. “Steve sucks at forgery.”

“I don’t suck at the actual forgery part.” Steve insists from behind Jonathan, suddenly close enough to make him startle. “The name Cynthia just like, kicks my dyslexia’s ass.”

“Dustin wants you to stop changing your schedule last minute.” Jonathan informs him. 

“Dustin should stop robbing me blind for arcade money, then.” 

It strikes Jonathan as incredibly ironic that Steve Harrington, resident of Loch Nora, has to pick up extra shifts for money. Awhile ago, when Jonathan hated him, he was pretty convinced that Steve would never work a day in his life and if he did attempt it, it’d probably kill him. He was only half-wrong. Steve sort of looks like he’s dying right now. 

“Jesus.” Jonathan blurts once Steve is behind the counter and he has a full view, realizing too late how rude it is. Steve glares at him, but it’s halfhearted. Mostly he just looks exhausted. There are dark circles under his eyes, prominent in the shitty fluorescent lighting of the store that make it look like he hasn’t slept in weeks. His hair is unusually messy and the strands that curl at his forehead look almost damp. It matches the light pink flush spanning over his cheeks. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” 

“You look sick.” 

“Thanks, Jonathan. You look pretty, too.” Steve gives him a bright smile and a tone full of faux-sincerity, making Robin snicker beside him. 

“Don’t bother.” Robin says when Jonathan glances at her for an explanation. “He won’t admit to it. And he’s freakishly good at covering up whatever symptoms he has, because I haven’t seen a single one yet.”

“That’s because there aren’t any.” Steve insists, but offers no reasoning for the heat exhaustion he looks like he’s dangerously close to succumbing to. Jonathan figures it’s a good thing Steve graduated. Now all he has to do tonight is give the five people in town who won’t be attending the game a movie and hopefully rest. He meets Jonathan’s eyes again, but only for a moment before darting away. King Steve probably isn’t used to be stared at for _not_ looking good. Jonathan looks away. 

“There’s Nancy.” Robin notes. They all turn their heads to the window to watch Ted Wheeler’s borrowed car nearly hit the curb as she abruptly brakes in her jerky, nervous way of parking. Jonathan and Steve look away once the driver’s side door opens so she won’t realize they were watching. Robin does not.

“I’m in the lines.” Nancy snaps preemptively the moment the door is open, slipping her father’s keyring with its scratched up novelty keychain from Orlando into her coat pocket. Robin already has her hands up defensively, trying to school her expression into one of neutrality. 

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were going to. Steve, you look horrible.”

“Everyone’s being so nice today. Can we start?”

“Do you have somewhere to be?”

“Yeah, here. I’m supposed to be working, not having secret meetings in the back room.”

All three of them attempt to shush him at once, which Steve meets with an eye roll and a pointed look around the rest of the store, empty except for one group of preteen girls gathered around the comedy section. Still, he reaches for the back room door and leads them in, dooming the girls to a long wait whenever they’re ready to check out. 

Jonathan doesn’t like the back room of Family Video. It’s too small, too dim, and smells too strongly of artificial nature from the three bottles of air freshener propped up by the stack of new movie shipments. The walls are cinderblock. It reminds him of Murray’s bunker, and the discussions they have in here feel insane enough to warrant Murray’s presence. Jonathan sighs when he drops into one of the two plastic chairs on either side of the wobbly table. Nancy takes the other chair, and after a few seconds it occurs to Jonathan that Steve is standing slumped against the wall. 

Jonathan gets up. Steve pretends not to notice for a few seconds before casually seizing the opportunity to sit. 

“So.” Robin starts, as always. She stands in front of the whiteboard with their data, cleverly disguised to appease Keith and keep him from erasing it. It’s really a list of the dates she’d previously reported, but with the caption **STEVE FUCK UPS** to make it look like creative bullying that Keith will approve of. Robin adds last night’s date. “It broke schedule.”

“Start at the beginning.” Nancy says. Robin sighs deeply, looking upwards at the water-stained ceiling. 

“Same as always. Other than it being a day early, obviously, everything was pretty typical. My dad got a call right at 7, I know because we were right in the middle of Wheel of Fortune and he was super pissed. It was about a lady in Silver Brooke saying she saw a wolf in the woods behind her house.”

“Silver Brooke.” Jonathan repeats, thinking. “Why does that sound familiar?”

“Max’s neighborhood.” Steve supplies. Right. Jonathan’s dropped her off there after school on the occasions that Steve hadn’t been able to. 

“How big?”

Nancy always asks this, using up her excess energy by wrapping a strand of her now shoulder-length hair around one finger until it turns red and she lets it unravel again. Robin always looks exasperated and says, “He didn’t stop to give me every detail. But it’s gotta be the same one, right?”

“Did he tell you about it when he got back?” Jonathan asks. 

Robin averts her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest, reluctant. “By the time he got there, it was gone. No tracks.”

“Oh my God, okay, this is the fifth time!” Nancy insists. “How long are we going to pretend it’s a wolf and not tell Hopper? Are we waiting for it to attack someone or--”

“It _would_ have by now!” Robin exclaims. They’ve had this debate four times before, each time growing steadily more heated as the situation feels more urgent. At first, Jonathan was firmly convinced by Nancy’s assessment that a stray demodog, possibly some anomaly that didn’t drop dead when the gate closed or worse, a sign of a new gate open somewhere, was roaming the woods and being mistaken for a wolf. It seemed impossible to ignore when Robin casually mentioned that her father, an animal control officer, was getting sent around town trying to find what was _probably_ a wolf that showed up on a schedule and left irregular tracks. Too strange, and too coincidental for Hawkins. 

Their first meeting had been discussing whether or not to tell Hopper, with Nancy and Jonathan suggesting that it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for him to be on defense even if it did turn out to be a wolf. Robin and Steve had argued that Hopper finding out would easily lead to El finding out, which would lead to the other kids finding out, which would be a lot of old wounds reopened for what they insisted was a wolf. Well, Steve thinks it’s a wolf. Robin thinks something...else. 

“Werewolves don’t exist, Robin.” Nancy says plainly, like she’s sick of having this conversation. Jonathan knows she isn’t. Nancy enjoys the back and forth, if only because she’s entirely certain that she’s right and any ridiculous claims made by the other side will be that much more rewarding once there’s definitive proof. Jonathan, however, is a little sick of it, and he thinks Steve is starting to be, too. Or Steve’s just sick in general and it explains the degree to which he’s zoned out right now, staring blankly at the clock on the wall. 

“Giant monsters made out of people that climb on top of the mall don’t exist, Nancy.” Robin bickers back in the same tone. “Look, my dad and his people are good at their jobs. Nothing has ever gotten away this many times before. It’s smart! Almost like it’s, I don’t know, a _person?”_

“Still doesn’t explain the tracks being messed up.”

“Obviously when they changed back into a person, they went and covered their tracks.”

Jonathan at least has to admire her confidence in delivering this theory. He’s heard it before, though, and he doesn’t currently have the patience to spend an hour listening to them rehash the same points as always. “So are we going to do anything this time?”

“Well I have a proposal.” Robin says, looking somewhat disappointed to be deprived of her debate. “It hasn’t missed a full moon yet, right? Almost like a werewolf, but whatever. If it misses tonight, I’ll agree to telling the cop.”

“That seems backwards.” Nancy objects. “I thought we agreed that more sightings meant more danger, which meant calling Hopper.”

“I didn’t agree to that.”

There’s a knock on the door suddenly, immediately halting all conversation and making Steve jolt in his seat like he’s been snapped out of a deep sleep. They all watch the door uncertainly, frozen and paranoid while seconds pass in ominous silence, until the voice of a young girl bold enough to walk behind the counter and demand their movie be checked out asks, “Is anyone gonna _help_ us?”

There’s another pause until they all look at Steve, which seems to make him remember he works here. With what looks like great effort, he wordlessly stands and starts towards the door. It feels strange to go this long without hearing Steve talk. Once the door is closed behind him, Nancy echoes the sentiment. Sort of. 

“Is Steve on drugs?” She demands. 

“Not at the moment.” Robin is looking at the closed door with narrowed eyes. Almost like she’s trying to convince herself, she decisively says, “He just acts weird when he’s sick.”

“He’s been weird in general for awhile now. Today is weirder than usual, but he’s been--I don’t know, tired?” Nancy looks up at Jonathan. They’d actually talked about this last night on the phone, after she finished complaining about having to take the kids to the game and groaned about not having the energy to be around all the kids for that many consecutive hours the way Steve does. Or _did_ , she’d said. Jonathan agreed. 

“Maybe he has mono.” Robin shrugs. 

“Ashley Ritter has mono.” Nancy realizes, eyes wide like she’s just had a life-altering epiphany. Robin scoffs. 

“So werewolves are improbable, but you’ll buy Steve macking on _Ashley_? She’s a snitch.”

“If werewolves exist, how is there no scientific evidence of them yet?”

“You’re saying every undiscovered species only starts existing once some dude publishes it in a journal?”

Jonathan tunes them out. The anxiety he’s carried with him all day is fading, fortunately, as it always does after they meet. Things are also worse when he envisions them. Still, no matter how many times he tells his brain that Robin’s news will just be another sighting, not anyone turning up mauled by a wolf, demodog, whatever, he can’t help but assume the worst. And even though he’s calmer now, there’s still a little warning light blinking faintly somewhere in his head. No one turned up mauled _this_ time. There’s always next time. And if the pattern continues, next time means tonight. 

He’s tired of things being weird. This weird is better than past weirds, because this time his little brother isn’t in direct danger and his life isn’t entirely consumed by this. It’s more of a hobby, though that itself seems absurd. Can he put this on his college application under extra curriculars? Journalism, yearbook, monster hunting club, some volunteer hours. 

The door opens again and Steve returns. He’s rubbing at one eye with his wrist, jaw tight and strained like he’s fighting a yawn. Right as Jonathan wonders if there’s no one else working with him tonight, Steve warns them, “Keith is gonna come in soon.”

“We never heard your thoughts.” Robin says. 

“I don’t have any thoughts.” Steve shrugs, apparently so tired that he doesn’t foresee the teasing that could result from the phrasing of that statement. Robin bites her lip but says nothing. “I still think it’s a wolf. Or maybe a coyote or something. You know, when I was like ten there was a coyote in my neighborhood and it freaked me out because I thought it was gonna eat my cat.”

“You don’t think there’s any chance its a demodog?” Nancy asks. 

“Or a werewolf?”

“I think all the demodogs dropped dead when El closed the gate, and if there was a fresh batch we’d know. Or Will would know, with his little brain sensor.” Steve shrugs, like it’s simple. Jonathan wonders why he didn’t speak up before now if he’s so confident in his assessment. “And I think if it’s a werewolf, we should leave ‘em alone. What if it’s like, Mr. Clarke?” 

Nancy groans and brings a hand to her temple. Robin seems to be genuinely considering it, her mouth screwed up while she contemplates. Finally she shakes her head decisively. “I think it would conflict too much with his career. But we _should_ make a suspect list.” 

“Oh my God.” Nancy mutters, but Jonathan knows she could come up with theoretical suspects if she really wanted to.

“Next time.” Steve suggests, reaching back to push the door open. “If there is a next time, anyways.”

The girls both reach for their bags in synch. Jonathan takes another look at the schedule board, at the little space where today’s date will be written tomorrow. After this ends, which it will because they always end eventually, he wonders what the next thing will be. The statistics textbook in his locker would tell him that eventually, if they keep progressing at this rate, their luck will run out. Something bad will happen. Not that bad things haven’t already happened. There’s a copy of Mr. Mom somewhere in this store that will never enter their house again. 

Jonathan suddenly feels the urge to say something to them. He’s lost people three times now, only once being real and permanent but the other two times still just as traumatic, and after each one he was left with a flood of regret like ice water collected in his chest that he couldn’t cough up, burning and swirling around endlessly. He could say something now. 

But Robin and Nancy are already filing out while Steve holds the door for them and in the few seconds of buffer, Jonathan realizes what he’s doing. He’s panicking. For no reason, the therapist he went to once at Mom’s request would say. Apparently his problem is that he creates situations of danger that aren’t really there, then panics over them and gets himself worked up for no reason. Jonathan had nodded politely and then told Mom he’s never stepping foot in that stuffy room with generic ocean paintings on the wall ever again. At the time it’d seemed so stupid, just coming off Will’s second near death experience, but now he has a little bit of clarity. 

Dr. Russo would say standing here and trying to formulate some meaningful last words in case one of them died via being mauled by a werewolf tonight is unhealthy. 

Jonathan shoulders his bag and follows out behind Robin. She’s arguing that Hopper _could_ be a werewolf, technically, they don’t know where he goes when he’s quote unquote on the job. Nancy is shaking her head and pretending to be over the conversation. The meeting was quicker than Jonathan expected. There’s enough time to actually study before the game and undo the lie he told.

He pauses at the counter. Steve is sitting on the stool they rarely use, looking like the polar opposite of his usual energetic employee disposition. Just in case Dr. Russo was wrong, Jonathan taps the counter to get his attention and asks, “Are you okay? Really?”

“Really.” Steve gives him a worn smile. “It’s a cold or something. The only customers tonight are gonna be like, old people and the kids.”

“The kids are gonna be at the game.” Jonathan reminds him. 

Steve looks up with a tilt of his head. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.” It’s slightly surprising that Steve doesn’t already know this. Dustin usually tells him everything. Nancy thinks it’s possible that the kids aren’t actually planning on staying at game for longer than an hour, though, so they might not have thought it necessary to mention. It would make more sense for El to prefer the quiet familiarity of Family Video over the chaos of a football game packed with screeching people she doesn’t know. “Nancy’s taking them.”

“Huh.” Steve blinks. 

That’s all he says. His eyes are narrowed in confusion, looking like he’s trying to make sense of some complex puzzle. To be fair, the kids voluntarily attending a football game is a bit of a puzzle. Maybe the kids did tell Steve and he just forgot in the haze of his current condition. Jonathan doesn’t know what other meaningful things to say and Steve seems preoccupied now, so he nods and reminds him, “Take it easy.”

“Yeah.” Steve murmurs distractedly. 

He catches Nancy pulling out of the lot when he steps back out into the dimming light. The days are getting shorter already, and if Jonathan looks up and follows the tip of the tallest pine tree he can see the pale circle of the full moon already waiting for the sky to finish darkening. He waves at Nancy for a second, probably a mistake considering all her focus should be on driving, and unlocks his car. 

The game is loud. Much louder than the library had been for the blissful two hours that Jonathan sat in the back table and ignored his history paper. He’s positioned beside the cheerleaders, although a few feet farther back from the yard lines than they are. Last year, Mark Hogan had been mistakenly tackled doing the exact job Jonathan is doing right now. If a football player tackles him in front of bleachers full of his peers, Jonathan better get knocked out and never wake up. 

Tonight there isn’t much tackling going on. He does not understand football. He probably never will. Some games seem to take twelve hours after all the constant clock stopping and time-outs are factored in. At the moment, someone from the other team is sitting on the field with his leg stretched out in front of him while the coaches prod at it. Jonathan takes the opportunity to search the bleachers for Nancy and the kids. 

He finds Robin first. With the band, standing at the very top row of the bleachers. Her clarinet isn’t particularly welcome at the moment and her eyes are half-lidded, shoulders slumped while she waits. His sweep continues, eyes passing over familiar faces and varsity jackets until he spots a flare of bright red that he knows is Max. 

Nancy is sitting with her chin resting on her palm, miserable, but the kids actually look entertained. Even Will, which doesn’t seem right. Jonathan glances back to the field to catch whatever is happening that could possibly be so enthralling to them, but nothing’s changed. They’re still twisting away at the dude’s ankle while he sits with his face scrunched up. Another look back reveals that Lucas is saying something to the rest of them and it occurs to Jonathan that he’s probably narrating. Using this guy’s far from career ending injury as something to grasp onto and make fascinating enough for them to all listen closely. That’s what the kids do about everything. Make nothing into something. If they heard Robin’s werewolf theory, they’d go crazy. 

Jonathan looks back up at the moon. Now it’s bright and blazing overhead in the cloudless sky. Morning and sunrises have always been more appealing in terms of the type of sky he wants to use film on, but tonight is impressive, he has to admit. Impulsively, Jonathan aims his lens at the sky.

Just as his shutter clicks, the crowd erupts in polite clapping on his side and enthusiastic yelling on the other. The guy is now limping off the field with other players on either side and the announcer reports that Ken Gordon, number 38, is a real trooper in the gritty microphone crackle that echoes beyond the stadium. 

He focuses for the rest of the first quarter, satisfied with what he’s taken. Mrs. Hernandez insists that staying for the whole game is the best way to get usable shots, because there’s more to choose from and all that. It’s good advice, if you’re a freshman picking up a camera for the first time. Jonathan is good, though. Shooting the whole game is a waste of film. There’s no way around staying though, because he needs to turn his press pass and tripod back in at the end of the night. 

Mrs. Hernandez is up in the box, though. For how much she preaches about diligence and sticking through the whole game, she’s always up there, sitting, by the end of the first quarter. Jonathan usually waits until halftime to do this, but tonight he’s restless. So he folds his tripod up and leans it against the railing, out of the path of any stray cheerleaders, and heads down the sidelines until he reaches the outskirts of the stadium and hops over the waist-high metal gate. 

Photographing the forest at night is a thrill now. He’s always liked it, though most of the results are too dark and grainy to ever be considered usable by most portfolio standards. He likes the shape of trees at night, dark and fuzzy and impossible to say with complete certainty that they really _are_ trees. And it’s morbid, maybe wrong, but Jonathan kept the pieced together picture of Barbara on the diving board. He can’t look at it without feeling sort of nauseous, so he doesn’t very often. Only when he remembers what Dr. Russo said and starts feeling crazy. 

His camera is like a superpower, Will told him once. It makes things that are invisible to everyone else visible to him. Jonathan had replied that it was kind of a lame superpower, considering it only kicked in when the photos developed later. 

Still. Better late than never. Jonathan stands at the threshold to the forest and aims his camera between two skinny trees and clicks. 

Something moves. 

He takes a step back, stupidly taking his eyes off the trees to look back at the stadium. The band is playing now, a mess of sound that he can only barely distinguish as their fight song, and when he looks back he only sees a blur of darkness crashing through the shadows. Something big. Something running. 

“Holy shit.” Jonathan grabs his camera with trembling hands and takes another picture, probably unusable because he’s already turning to run back the way he’d come. It had seemed like such a short distance walking over, but now the stretch of emptiness between the woods and the stadium looks miles wide. His camera and press pass are both swinging and twisting against his chest. The band is still playing, though now the pounding of his heart in his ears makes it impossible to decipher any actual tune or rhythm. 

He reaches the metal gate and stops, leaning against it to momentarily catch his breath. He’s back under the yellow stadium lights now. If the thing gets near him now, he’ll at least be able to see what it is. Not that it’ll matter, really, if it mauls him anyways. 

If the game seemed loud before, now it’s deafening. He can’t differentiate the screams of the crowd from the band’s music from the voice of the announcer from the yells of the cheerleaders from his own heartbeat. He tries to shut off his hearing and rely entirely on vision. He retraces his steps from earlier, finding Robin with her clarinet now raised to her mouth, then Nancy and the kids looking bored with the actual game. It would be easier to get to Nancy first, but it would also alarm the kids. Robin’s surrounded by more people, though, and he’d have to yell to be heard over the music. Who else might hear? And what would he even say? What are they supposed to _do?_

He could break the deal and call Hopper. The gym door is propped open, he knows that for sure. He can get back in the school and find a phone. This plan seems like the most appealing option the longer he hovers by the gate and thinks, so Jonathan glances at the outline of the school several yards away. It’s a long way in the dark. But if he--

The shadow zooms through his field of vision, crossing the front of the school and blinking in and out of darkness when it passes through light pouring from staggered windows. The last half-circle of light it passes through is closest to the gym door. 

Fuck that plan, then. Jonathan looks down and realizes his hands are wrapped around the gate, knuckles white. He forces them to unclench and makes a symbolic promise that if this thing is just a coyote or stray dog, he’ll go back to therapy. 

For now, he hops over the gate and starts climbing the bleachers. Legs burning and ears ringing by the time he reaches the top, he reaches over Alice Bennet’s clarinet to grab at Robin’s. It makes an unpleasant whistle when she abruptly jerks away and he receives the most vicious glare he’s ever seen on Robin’s face before it’s replaced by recognition and then concern. She says something he can’t hear over the rest of the band continuing to play. He mouths a, _“What?”_

He’s never been good at reading lips, but it helps to have an idea of what she’s going to say. Matched with an expression that captures both fear and unbridled excitement, Robin mouths back, _“Werewolf?”_

He grabs at her wrist and tugs just enough to get her moving. She slides in front of Alice and joins him in the aisle, taking the lead and heading down the bleachers two at a time. There’s a nonverbal agreement between both of them to talk only when they won’t have to yell. They reach the aisle that leads to Nancy, which Robin starts up automatically before stopping two steps higher. She must realize the same dilemma he had earlier--the kids. 

“Fuck.” He can just barely hear her mutter. There’s a new surge of energy in the stands and frantic narration over the loudspeaker. Jonathan doesn’t have to turn around to know someone’s booking it to the endzone. 

Thank God Nancy doesn’t care about football. Her eyes are wandering away from the game, looking around at the screaming crowd around her with clinical fascination like she’s witnessing some scientific anomaly, and they find Jonathan and Robin within thirty seconds. They widen when she sees them. If they look as frantic as Jonathan feels, they probably look deranged. 

Nancy starts to stand, alarmed, and beside her El looks up and says something. Nancy responds, then glances back down at them. Jonathan gives her an adamant head shake that he hopes she understands. He points at the school. 

It must be the three prior times they’ve hunted monsters together. She nods once and sits back down with El, who looks back at the field, apparently appeased for the moment. It’s good enough for Jonathan. He jerks his head back in the direction of the school and Robin follows. They speedwalk instead of run to avoid attention from any inquiring teachers. Jonathan realizes halfway through the dark that he’s weaponless for the first time in a situation like this. He could cram his camera down its throat, maybe?

Then Mrs. Hernandez is _really_ gonna be pissed. 

The sound is fading back out as they break into a run. Robin’s band uniform is making a jingling noise with every step. He realizes for the first time that she has absolutely no context for what’s happening. She’d guessed correctly (maybe not _correctly_ , unless it does happen to be a fantasy creature) but he’d never confirmed it. She’s just running into the empty school without a confirmed reason as to why it’s necessary. 

Jonathan didn’t even know her last year. Now he makes sure to grab the gym door before she can so if there’s something waiting to lunge at them from inside, she can get a headstart on running away. 

The gym is empty and dark. The giant tiger head painted on the far wall has been the target of jokes that have been around since Mom went here. It’s cross-eyed. Botched by an inexperienced or underpaid muralist who only really put detail into its open mouth and sharp teeth. At the moment, that’s all Jonathan can focus on anyways. 

“You’re sure the werewolf came in here?” Robin whispers through residual panting. 

“I saw _something_ come this direction. Maybe it didn’t--” His left foot loses grip on the floor for a second and slides, forcing him to stumble forward before regaining his balance. They both squint down in the darkness, only just barely able to see a splotch of dark brown on the gray paint. Without the moonlight shining through the windows that line the very tops of the walls, they wouldn’t be able to see the muddy prints that cut a diagonal line across the gym. 

“Oh my God.” Robin breathes. “Fuck. I wish Steve and Nancy were here.”

They start inching across the gym, following the line cautiously. For the illusion of safety they stay close together, close enough for Jonathan to feel the sleek fabric of her uniform and for his camera to bump against her clarinet with quiet clicking sounds. 

“Why?” He whispers. “So you can prove them wrong?”

“So they can use their gun and baseball bat to save our asses if it’s hungry.” 

Jonathan should probably be offended by that, but he can’t find it in himself right now. He _has_ held his own pretty well in the past. Literally killed his possessed boss. Robin knows this information but she might be skeptical without having seen it with her own eyes. Unlike the existence of werewolves. 

The tracks lead them to the room branching off the back wall of the gym, right under the tiger’s jaw. 

“Okay.” Jonathan tries to think. “It’s the locker room, so, if anything happens just climb in a locker and shut it.”

 _“That’s_ your plan?” 

“I didn’t exactly have time to call a meeting!”

There’s a low groan from inside the locker room. The sound raises goosebumps on the back of Jonathan’s neck and he has just enough time to consider if this is how it works for Will. The next thing he has to consider is the fact that it did not sound like any animal Jonathan’s ever heard. Nothing in the woods where Lonnie made him creep around with a rifle in hand ever sounded so strangely...human. Yet at the same time, it had been accompanied by the helpless whimper of an animal caught in the traps Lonnie set up, which took any and all actual fairness out of what he called “nature’s game” in an attempt to sound justified. 

He feels like he’s hunting right now. He’s scared, which Lonnie always told him not to be. _You’re a hell of a lot bigger than whatever’s out there_ , he’d say, _and you’ve got a gun_. In Jonathan’s experience with hunting things in the past three years, neither of those usually turned out to be true. Monsters are generally pretty big. Nancy was the one with the gun. But even if they _were_ true, Jonathan always wondered if he could really kill something that was just...existing. It didn’t apply to the Demogorgon, who stole his brother, or his possessed boss who was actively trying to murder him, but it could apply here. What if it’s just a coyote? Even wolves aren’t inherently evil just for existing. 

There’s another groan, this one more anguished and accompanied by the screeching of metal and a resulting crash. Maybe it’s trapped somehow. Caught and trying to escape, but just smashing against the lockers in futility. Actually, that’s probably the best scenario. They could call Robin’s dad and it could be happily relocated somewhere else. 

Unless it’s a demodog. In which case they’ll have to call Hopper, who’ll probably just shoot it. 

Jonathan squeezes his eyes shut for a few seconds and steels himself. Whatever it is, they’ll deal with it. Like they always do. Then later tonight he’ll be safe in his room and leaning against the wall he shares with Will, who won’t even know this happened. 

He looks at Robin, positioned with the door between them, and lifts an open palm. He lowers a finger at a time, counting them down from five, and when his little finger is down they step into the room in synch, Robin holding her clarinet out like a weapon. 

The locker area is empty. Duffel bags and clothes are strewn about and Robin’s face scrunches up like someone who’s never been subjected to the smell of the boys’ locker room. There’s no more groaning or whining, but instead heavy breathing coming from the shower area. It’s just barely audible. Jonathan creeps forward, careful to step with his toes and ease his heel down the way Lonnie told him to. He hates it. The first white cinderblock wall of a shower stall is directly in front of him when Robin pulls him to a stop and points at the floor. 

There’s a foot. A _human_ foot, bare and muddy and sticking out of the shower. The ankle it’s attached to is also smeared with mud. Jonathan is calmly certain that the rest of the body in the shower will be smeared more with blood than mud. He looks at Robin before proceeding, ready to tell her she can wait outside, but Robin looks more confused than horrified. Then, before he can stop her, she marches over and stands in front of the shower stall, kicking the outstretched leg once she’s there. 

_“Hey.”_ A familiar voice complains. The foot jerks out of sight. Jonathan closes the gap to stand beside Robin and looks down at Steve, curled up against the inner corner of the shower and grasping the gray curtain, ripped clean from its rings, like a blanket. He’s blinking up at them in a daze. Jonathan feels like he should not be the one looking so perplexed. Again, in a greeting this time, “Hey.”

“What the _fuck_?” Robin demands, dropping to her knees and inching forward to cup his cheek. His face is smeared with dirt, and underneath that is a deep red flush. Much darker than his earlier flush. If he had looked like this at Family Video, Jonathan would have probably called an ambulance. He’s still not convinced he shouldn’t do that now. 

“Sorry.” Steve murmurs, allowing her to tilt his face whichever way she wants. “I wasn’t even going to come here tonight, but then Jonathan said the kids were going to be here.”

“That’s so not what you should be apologizing about.”

“Look, I would’ve told you! I promise I would have, I just...I was scared! I didn’t know how you’d react or what you’d think--”

“Wait, I’m--” Jonathan’s brain feels like it’s on a delay. “Where’s the thing?”

“Are you serious?” Robin looks up at him. Somehow everything makes perfect sense to her apparently, and she’s standing at the end of the maze and impatiently waiting for him to find his way out. Even Steve is looking up at him with a sort of pitying expression, the type that he learned by being on the receiving end with Nancy. As if this was a potential outcome to this situation, something either of them expected all along. 

“Oh.” Jonathan says when it clicks. “You were the thing.”

“I was right.” Robin murmurs, then louder, “I was _right_!”

“I wanted to tell you on my own terms.” Steve sighs, letting his head fall back against the cinderblock. Jonathan realizes abruptly that he’s not wearing anything under the curtain, which answers a question he’s wondered before when watching old black and white creature features late at night. His brain is still a few seconds behind reality, so he doesn’t realize how insane it is that Steve can answer a question like that until he’s already turning to raid the locker section. 

He comes back with a folded pair of sweatpants and a semi-folded tee shirt, figuring they’re the best shot at clean out of the available selection. Crouching down beside Robin, he offers them to Steve, who grabs them with a bloody hand. Jonathan catches at it without thinking, holding it still to inspect the drying blood circling each of his nailbeds. 

“My nails like, grow out. And then kinda...go back in. When I turn back.” Steve seems to be gauging his reaction and then deduces, a little sadly, “You’re freaked out.”

“No!” Jonathan insists. “Just, um, confused. And surprised, I guess. It doesn’t seem like it would be you.”

It’s a ridiculous statement both within and without context, but it’s true. Jonathan had allowed himself to entertain the hypothetical possibility of werewolves existing, but his list was comprised of people like Hopper. Big guys with broad shoulders that looked like they could rip someone’s throat out with their teeth even in their human state. Not Steve Harrington, lean and put-together and meticulously styled. 

“It can be anyone, I guess.” Steve shrugs. “I don’t hurt people. I mean, I would if I had to.”

“So what do you...do?”

“I look out for the kids.” Steve shrugs. “If I’m gonna be forced to run around in the woods anyways I might as well check on them, y’know? Of course, it’s harder having Mr. Buckley trying to shoot me with a tranquilizer gun and then going back to cover my tracks.”

“Oh my God, my Dad tried to shoot you.” 

“You do this every night?” Jonathan asks. 

“God, no. I’d fucking die. It’s already exhausting and I get all gross and it makes me so sore the next day, plus I’m like, sweaty--”

“But last night?”

“Oh.” Steve shrugs, suddenly very interested in getting dressed. He waves them out and they compliantly turn the corner and stand with their backs to the stall. When he presumably stands, he winces in a way that’s entirely human but definitely reminiscent of the noises they heard earlier. The water starts with a screech and over the weak stream, Steve explains, “Max said her parents have been fighting. And y’know, her shitty dad gets all worked up sometimes and I just wanted to be nearby. But not in a creepy way where I sit outside their house in my car.”

“It’s not creepy to stalk them in wolf form?” Robin asks.

“I don’t just sit there and stare at their house, okay? I’m just around. In case I hear yelling or whatever.”

Sounds a lot like what Dr. Russo told Jonthan he does. Making up situations to be worried about, even without proof that they’re happening. But what Dr. Russo doesn’t understand is that there’s a precedent for these feelings. Clearly there have been times where Steve wished he could’ve been around the Mayfield house. And clearly all of Jonathan’s paranoia about the potential of a deadly creature being on the loose was right. 

The water stops and Steve emerges a minute later, face clean and slowly regaining a normal color. His hair is soaked and obscuring one eye, which he rubs at with his fist and yawns. 

Not a deadly creature, actually. Not even really a creature in general. Just Steve.

“So the full moon?” Robin asks, like she has a checklist of questions and she’s going down systematically. 

“Yeah, I have no choice there. I can go back pretty quickly if I really try.” He glances at Jonathan with a rueful smile. “I knew you saw me. That’s why I came here, to change back. Also because I didn’t want to be naked in the woods.”

“And then the other nights of the month you just choose to.” Robin confirms. 

“Right. If I feel like I should. Aren’t you missing the game?”

“Aren’t you missing work?”

“I told Keith I was gonna puke.” 

There’s footsteps in the gym suddenly, coming closer, and Jonathan wonders if the game has really ended this quickly when Nancy’s head pokes through the doorway. Her face screws up the way Robin’s had, even more so when she sees them. 

“Steve?” She steps inside fully, making her way to the showers. Jonathan glances at Robin and finds the exact shade of triumph he expected her to have. Nancy is going to hate this. She’s also going to love it, though. The possibility that all these things exist isn’t particularly striking to Jonathan anymore. He’s officially numb to the supernatural. Nancy never really loses interest. “What are you doing here?”

“Being a _werewolf_!” Robin nearly yells before a word can escape Steve’s mouth. He closes it, shrugs when Nancy looks at him incredulously. 

“Yeah.” He hums. 

“I told the kids I would bring all of them back a soft pretzel, which I’ll have to buy and carry back singlehandedly, just so I could come in here and be subjected to a stupid prank?” Nancy asks in her calm voice that she uses when she’s furious. He wouldn’t be surprised if either her or Robin lunged at the other. 

Robin scoffs so hard it probably hurts her throat, holding up a hand like she can’t even stand to look at Nancy. That lasts five seconds before she grabs Nancy’s arm and pulls her over to the shower, pointing insistently. “You can see _fur_! There were _tracks_!”

“Yeah, theatre kid magic, I’m so impressed.” Nancy deadpans.

Steve sort of looks like he’s going to fall over. Jonathan wonders if it hurts, having his body all rearranged like that. It must, right? And it explains the exhaustion, the constant schedule shifting, the sickly look he has on certain days of the month. It’s a relief, in a lot of ways. Jonathan knows Steve is never going to see a doctor again unless he needs to go on life support. 

For now, he looks like he just needs to sit. Jonathan steers him to the closest bench to sit, using the excuse to touch his shoulder to see how it feels. Normal. Human skin, damp from the shower. 

“Huh.” Jonathan mutters without thinking. Steve looks slightly humiliated, so Jonathan drops his hand. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Robin is never going to let me hear the end of it anyways.”

Dropping down to sit beside him, Jonathan considers just shutting up. Unfortunately he can’t. There are questions that will be forgotten by the time enough days have gone by for it to be considered polite to ask. Most pressing, “If it hurts so bad, why do you do it?”

“Other than the full moon.” Steve reminds him. “I guess I just get...anxious. That something bad is going to happen and I’m not going to be there to do anything about it. And I figured if I have to do it on full moons anyway, I might as well do it all the time.”

“Just because it’s inevitable sometimes doesn’t mean you have to resign yourself to it all the time. Then you’re just in pain more often.”

Steve shrugs. “Other people might not be.”

It’s not how it works. Jonathan knows because he’s had the same mindset for the past three years, a belief that his constant worry is worth it because it’ll pay off eventually. He can worry every day of the year, and if it happens to keep Will safe just one day, the other 364 are worth it. But the kids are currently safe on the bleachers, awaiting their soft pretzels, and Steve is the one slumped against the wall with blood on his nailbeds. 

“You’re not...scared of me, are you?” Steve asks quietly after a long pause. He seems to force himself to make eye contact with Jonathan. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jonathan thinks he should’ve known it was Steve. His eyes have always been all wide and pleading like the dogs Jonathan fed on his walk home from school before he drove. 

“Of _you_? No. I can take you, remember?”

Steve grins, looking the most at ease Jonathan has seen him in months. “You can take this version of me.”

“I’ll just carry a tennis ball for the other, then.”

“Shut up.” Steve groans, slumping forward to put his face in his hands. Jonathan looks up at Robin, looking satisfied, and Nancy, watching Steve with growing amazement. He figures they won’t have to have any more meetings for awhile. There will be others, though. Other times he has to worry because a monster _will_ come back or another mythical creature will be spotted roaming around Hawkins. 

But until then, Jonathan isn’t going to picture it. He’s not going to imagine all the hypotheticals. He’s going to spend his time making a list of every werewolf movie he’s ever heard of and get Steve to fact check them.

**Author's Note:**

> so this was a gift for whookami who donated money to actblue charities! it was different from my usual stuff which made it really fun and exciting to write!! tysm to em my angel (floralathena on here and lesbianrobin on tumblr) for giving me ur thoughts as always queen <3 im on tumblr too @steveharrington if u wanna talk or donate to get ur own fic! also the title is from strange trails by lord huron a song i have decided is about werewolves


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